A quick stop in Wyoming

We spent a longer time in AZ than normal because we wanted to do so many activities on our POGO pass before it expired, and swim a lot, and stay for Annalen's baptism. So when we got back to Wyoming it was just a quick stay for Casey to interview at a bunch of places before we had to be back for a doctor's appt for myself. But even the short time we had there was great. The weather was BEAUTIFUL!

I loved this little scene of Grammie and Bryson.

We took a walk one evening down to the river to throw rocks in the river, look for birds, and play in dirt. It was seriously such a wonderful evening on that windy walk.

Blessed Quinn was a dreamy sleeper one morning, bless that child! Whereas naughty Bryson woke up at 3 am, wouldn't stop crying, so he slept in my bed with me and then at 5:30 feel off the bed onto Max who was on the ground, which meant the rest of us were awake form then on!

The result of Max waking up so early.

The day back from our long long trip= restocking the fridge. Our children are very unhelpful shoppers as you can see.

randoms of AZ

Caged in like monkeys when we left on a date.

Some seriously GREAT helpers peeling sweet potatoes for me!

A little visit to In-N-Out, yay! So delicious

Except it's a little less delicious when you're trying to force children to ear just 1 quarter of a plain burger and then they just end up harassing all the other customers around you.

Helped my mom with a balloon job one morning.

People complain about how hot Arizona is. No. No, Arizona is not nearly as unbearably hot as the midwest! Humidity is a KILLER! The dry heat was such a great break from the humidity and was so much more bearable for me to be in! We went to the park one morning and could last longer than in Nebraska because it wasn't intensely humid! But then again, it's where I grew up, it's the type of weather I have memories so I'm partial to it.

Bryson and Quinn (and even Maxson sometimes) were OBSESSED with Goldie! She's one of our new little nieces that happened to be staying at my parents house while we were so the the twins LOVED all the baby time they could get around her.

Poor Max and his ear infection, this is the first he's had that's been painful.

Some of the grandkids with Granny and Papa at night after some little fireworks

A little firework show on the driveway for 4th of July, complete with otter pops!

Happy 4th of July!

more firework fun.

Our 4th of July dinner was delish with so many great sides and recipes thanks to Mels Kitchen Cafe!

More baby love! This is our new little nephew, Calvin, Logan and Blair's little boy. Snuggling with your own nieces and nephews is the closest you get to snuggling a child of your own with all the love you have,

I was so proud of Max going to Primary all by himself to a new ward. he just walked in, sat in the front row and let us leave so easily! Man when this boy is good, he is good, I love him so much. He did so great during sacrament too, not the same can be said of the babies...we had to take them home after the 2nd hour to take a nap.

Baby Goldie! Don't trust this face she loved me. This is Kirk and Whitney's first baby girl. Seriously so cute and (at least in person) she looks so much like my brother Kirk, it's hilarious.

Splash Pad fun with Blair and her girls!

Luckily we went together because Blair's car stopped working on our way out! So we squoze her 4 kids into our back row while she sat in the trunk area to take them to their house, haha, Yay for so much room in mini vans!

Max was stoked to finally get some of his own shooter guns from my birthday night.

Love me some sleeping children in the backseat.

And lastly, we got to bet there for Annalen's baptism! It was unfortunate that my parents were on a church history trip but we were so happy we got to be there with them and for her! Max has seen a baptism before but now that the event is connected to someone he knows and loves he talks about it and connects events and all that important stuff, I'm so happy we got to stay for her! Although my twins were AWFUL during the blessing and other waling parts, ugh. I didn't even get to hear Annalee's blessing after she had been baptized!

(It seems like all my brothers are only working on producing girls...where I'm the only one producing boys!)

swimming and bahama bucks

We only got to go to Bahama Bucks twice, BUT those two times were so delicious! The first time we went was with the whole AZ family after bowling one night. My children of course were crying and screaming during half of it because they didn't have their OWN cup. See Bryson? Insisting he hold Casey's cup. Max was screaming during some of it. Quinn probably was. Ugh, sometimes I wonder why we do fun things because during half of it it's NOT fun, blergh. 

Blue tongues! Love blue raspberry!

Our main Arizona love was SWIMMING!!!!!!! We were seriously out there for about 2 hours everyday. The babies did SOOOOOO great. These little puddle jumpers are so great, it allowed them to have their own fun, independent swimming experience the whole time. Bryson was a great floater and kicker, Quinn whined a little more but really they were so great. Maxson on the other hand, sigh. He did SO great the first 2 days we swam together. And then did really bad one day, and then refused to swim for days on end. We learned he had a really bad ear infection, poor guy, luckily we didn't push him much when he said he didn't want to swim. He did really good another day, and then really awful some other days. When I say really awful I mean he refused to take off the floatie and swim but he'd still get in the pool and swim. When he did try to swim he could swim like all the way across the pool by himself, silly boy, blah. We'll get there someday.

2nd bahama bucks trip! Savage young families with no shirts.

Casey FINALLY got his free punch on this visit so he got the biggest size possible, ha. savage.

Wish we had more swimming pictures, but with all our little kids and no water proof camera it was just a little difficult!

The best (summer) day ever!

My list of reasons why summer is the best season of the year

-fun in the water

-endless time jumping on the tramp

-lots of friend gatherings outside

-sprinkler fun

-pool fun

-slip n slide fun

-swings and slides fun

-yummy  food with friends

-the smell of sunscreen

-smores

-good friends

-laughing at cute children

And this evening involved all of it!

I think the kids played in the water and on the tramp for 2-3 hours not even hesitating to stop. I love when they can just go and go and just have fun without lots of "no's"

Thanks for letting us crash at your house Haines!

POGO pass AZ love

Last year we bought a POGO pass in Arizona and the 3 times we have been in Arizona to use it it has been so fun and so worth it!

It was our last time we were going to get to use the POGO pass before it expires so we tried to use it as much as we possibly could.

We did the diamond backs game with just Maxson, it was great one on one time with him. He was super excited and did great from when we got there (bottom of the 1st) until about the 4th inning and then he was done, ha. So to pass the boring time we'd switch off taking him to the bathroom, getting different food (hot dog and ice cream!) filling up water bottles. The 6th inning lasted SOOO terribly long and the D-backs did AWFUL. I think they gave up like 9 runs or something and before the inning was over I was like "Max and I cannot stay any longer!" We were both so tired and so not interested in it anymore.

ALSO your tickets for the POGO pass are always the super awful high ones but right when we walked in the stadium there was no one manning the low section right in front of us so we thought "don't mind if we do!" and were able to sneak in and sit in the low section between home and 3rd. Made the whole game so much better.

On another day we took all the kids to a place called Makutu's. It's a huge tree house climbing place. Think McDonald's play place but actually super huge and cool and legit. All 5 of us had tons of fun. The kids loved the super fast slide. Casey also found a bunch of tokens in the machine that you exchange money for the arcade games. He and the children loved those tokens for a little bit of fun.

On 4th of July we took Maxson rock climbing. Casey and I absolutely loved it (not going to lie, I had to DRAG Casey to go there, he was feeling a little tired, ha). Casey and I both went up once to practice belaying on each other. And then it was Max's turn. He went up a few feet, I think he liked it, and then he DID NOT like coming down, it must have really scared him (I promise he was only a little above Casey's height) but he then REFUSED to participate  for ever the next hour. Oh that boy.

We belayed each other, Blair and Logan were there so we helped belay their kids too. I have absolutely loved each time we've gone rock climbing, definitely one of those activities I wish we could do more often. It's physical, it's active, you help each other, you cheer each other, it's challenging, I love it.

FINALLY at the end when we were about to leave and we were somehow able to bribe Max to try again with a promise of Raising Cane's that we saw around the corner on the way there (spoiler alert, we didn't realize it was CLOSED bc of 4th of July! poor guy was heartbroken!). First it was to a spot just a foot off the ground, and he did it, woo! Then he'd go a little further up, come down, further up, come down, further, down, etc until I climbed next to him one time and I helped him make it to the top! He did so awesome I was so proud of him! I'm sure he was very proud of himself too :)

Another night we went bowling and mini golfing with the whole AZ family (mom, dad, logan's family, scott's family, kirk's family, cody's family) at Fat Cat's. It was pretty wild with all the kids around but fun nonetheless. Maxson loves bowling. If he could he'd just keep throwing the balls down the lane over and over and over.

Another morning we went to a trampoline place called Air Time in Scottsdale, again, all the kids loved it, the babies could jump forever and ever, but really the main jumpers were Casey and Max. They were so sweaty but had so much fun. Wish we could have stayed longer. Man a group of 4 little boys is really going to be so much fun as the years progress.

Another morning we did the zoo! We were really worries at first  that it would be way too hot to go but my SIL told me there are 2 splash pads there and lots of shade so it's totally doable! We got there as early as we could spend about an hour and a half seeing as much as we wanted, got wet as much as we could. We saw about half the zoo, lots of monkeys! Loved the gorillas but the tiny monkeys were just the best this time around! We had to laugh it off right when we got there because Maxson was just screaming his head off about something and we were like "why are we here?!?!?!?!" And then during the whole zoo time we only had 2 crappy umbrella strollers that all 3 kids fought over. It was seriously fight to the death for the strollers. I once saw Max turning back  to come to us after looking at some animal, Quinn had momentarily got up from the stroller and as soon as he saw Max coming back he raced back to the stroller. it was just so dang funny. Overall Quinn was the general peacemaker during the trip, bless his heart. He became good at hanging on for piggyback rides or sitting on Max's lap a little bit. We made it and actually really enjoyed it.